Post deployment illness Gulf War

The ground war lasted four days and resulted in 147 battlefield deaths, but almost 199,000 of the 698,000 people who were deployed have since qualified for some degree of service-related disability. Of those, 13,317 people are disabled by "undiagnosed conditions"; Medically Unexplained Symptoms; Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms (MUPS) or Unexplained Symptoms

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Who's side is VA Secretary on ?

Burden of proof verus benefit of doubtThe majority of medically relvalent records have Never been released to the publicor the researchers who write the Studies on gulf war undiagnoesed illness.This how they are led, by omitting information.

Does the government believe that Khamisiyah event occur? – YEShttp://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=16551

Did the government inventory these chemical weapons in Iraq? – YESDid the military blow up thousand of rounds in the Khamisiyah area – YESWere there American troops down wind of the explosions – Yes

Additionally, the VA is perceived as having a conflict of interest between its role as payor of disability benefits for veterans found to have war-related illnesses and its role as researcher into war-related illnesses. Distrust of the DoD was exacerbated when it notified 100,000 veterans of the Gulf War that they may have been exposed to chemical warfare agents destroyed at Khamisiyah, after the department had made repeated assurances that no such exposures had occurred. (OCR for page 28)http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9713&page=26

Therefore GW veterans must still fight for their benefits and ratings.